How the Candidates Differ On Immigration

The Center for International Policy, a group whose mission is "promoting a U.S. foreign policy based on international cooperation, demilitarization and respect for basic human rights," has released two reports in the past month comparing the positions of the Republican and Democratic candidates on immigration, using their own words, statements on their websites and their votes in Congress. On the Republican side, McCain and Huckabee are included; for the Democrats, it's Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

The presidential candidates of the Democratic Party share a common conviction that the country badly needs comprehensive immigration reform that offers a path to legalization for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The policy positions of the Democratic Party candidates—Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama—stand in sharp contrast to those offered by the Republican Party candidates, with the partial exception of John McCain.

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The Democratic Party candidates all support a "path toward legalization" that includes certain conditions, including learning English and paying a fine. They also support border security measures such as increased Border Patrol, fencing, and technological surveillance and workplace enforcement.

The candidates differ on offering drivers’ licences to illegal residents (Edwards and Obama support the measure and Clinton opposes it). They all agree on the need to combine workplace enforcement with legalization and labor rights. They have all criticized the rightwing rhetoric that demeans immigrants. On guestworker programs, Edwards opposes them unless they offer a path to citizenship, Clinton says they should “not exploit workers” and Obama states that the jobs must first be offered to U.S. citizens at a decent wage.

There are some differences between Hillary and Obama. I think she's stronger on family reunification. On the guest worker program, while Hillary stresses the rights of the workers, Obama stresses that Americans must be offered jobs first.

Hillary:

According to the Clinton website: "She opposes a guestworker program that exploits workers and creates a supply of cheap labor that undermines the wages of U.S. workers. Hillary believes all workers deserve safe conditions and decent wages. She supports an Ag Jobs program, which will keep our agricultural industry vibrant while enabling agricultural workers to receive the fair wages and labor protections they ought to receive."

Obama:

"Before any guestworker is hired, the job must be made available to Americans at a decent wage with benefits. Employers then need to show that there are no Americans to take these jobs. I am not willing to take it on faith that there are jobs that Americans will not take. There has to be a showing. If this guestworker program is to succeed, it must be properly calibrated to make certain that these are jobs that cannot be filled by Americans, or that the guestworkers provide particular skills we can't find in this country."

Obama offered an amendment to the failed immigration reform bill that "would strengthen the requirement that a job be offered at a prevailing wage to American workers before it is offered to a guestworker."

In another section, Obama says:

"I think that if they are illegal, then they should not be able to work in this country.

In yet another, he says:

As president I will make sure that we finally have the kind of border security that we need. Employers have to be held accountable. When we do those things, we can take the illegal aliens who are here, get them out of the shadows, make sure that they are subject to a stiff penalty, make sure that they're learning English, and go to the back of the line so they're not getting an advantage over people who came here legally."

On drivers' licenses he says:

When I was a state senator in Illinois, I voted to require that illegal aliens get trained, get a license, get insurance to protect public safety. That was my intention. The problem we have here is not driver's licenses. Undocumented workers do not come here to drive. They're here to work. Instead of being distracted by what has now become a wedge issue, let's focus on actually solving the problem that this administration, the Bush administration, had done nothing about it."

Memo to Senator Obama: No human being is illegal. Please refer to those in this country without proper documentation as "undocumented" not "illegal." The terms are not interchangeable. For example, 40 % of our undocumented residents came here legally and overstayed their visas. Thanks, TalkLeft.

On Family Reunification, Hillary:

"We do need to work with the Congress to get legislation that is comprehensive. I am proud to work with Sen. Menendez on trying to make sure that in the process of doing immigration reform, we don't separate families, we try to have family unification as one of the goals. So in addition to giving people a path to legalization, we want to make sure their families can come along with them. There does have to be an intensive effort with our friends to the south to see how the United States can once again be a partner, with a relationship based on mutual respect, where we work together to find ways that we can help them address the needs of the people living in countries to the south. Finally, we have to educate the American people about why immigration is as important today as it was when my family came through into Ellis Island."

There is no section listed for Obama on family reunification.

Hillary on anti-immigrant attitudes:

There are many in the political and the broadcast world today who take a particular aim at our Latino population. And I think it's very destructive. It undermines our unity as a country. There was a particularly egregious example of that in the House-passed bill last year. The House bill tried to criminalize anyone who helped an illegal immigrant, anyone who gave them medical care, any church that opened up to give them food at a dinner or breakfast. And I said that it would have criminalized the Good Samaritan. It would have criminalized Jesus Christ."

There is no section for Obama on anti-immigrant attitudes.

While Hillary and Obama are pretty similar on immigration, as they are on most issues, I give the higher mark to Hillary for her consistent emphasis on family reunification, which is one of the most important factors in my view. In 2004, she was a sponsor of the SOLVE Act(“Safe, Orderly, Legal Visas and Enforcment Act of 2004” or “SOLVE.”) The Solve Act would have granted Legal Permanent Resident status to undocumented workers and their families who had lived in the U.S. for at least 5 years.

backing of comprehensive immigration reform is influenced by being an Arizona politician. Sort of I get the feeling that a number of people in Arizona who oppose immigration reform are not Arizona natives. Just a feeling

It makes sense to me too. There's even a model for it, in the EU - and they've managed to gradually integrate not just the poorer countries in western Europe (Italy, for example), but also the more economically challenged eastern European countries.

approaches to immigration from non-EU countries or recently-accepted-into the EU countries. Ireland, for example, permits recent admittee citizens to immigrate to and work in Ireland. Some other EU countries don't. Plus, EU is about to start fingerprinting every non-EU person entering an EU country.

I see absolutely no difference between refrigerators and human beings. It's not like people have been known to do things that refrigerators won't do, like vote, represent another country's interests, march in the streets demaning rights to which they aren't entitled, and things like that.

As for using the EU as a model, never fear, those who regard you as useful idiots are working on that.

for continuing Bush's Cuba policy. Continuing the failed embargo of 40 years will accomplish nothing than hurt the regular folk in Cuba. But this is her pander to the old Cuban vote in Miami (1st generation). Most second gen Cubans do not favor continuing the embargo in its present state.

mark my words, press amnesty, and more than Republicans will be upset.

It's one hot button issue not seen since the abortion issue, that will cause a backlash, especially when the economy sours.

This is the one issue with Hillary, more so than healthcare, that can undo her candidancy if she becomes the Dem choice for president. The idea of letting folks who broke the law getting ahead of the line of legal immigrants, will anger folks top, down. I know my mom is, as she had to go through a heck of a lot to be a citizen, and to see these illegals get a free pass...it makes folks see Red.

on the proposed guestworker program. I believed that employers would be inclined to offer jobs below the prevailing wage for an occupation and American workers would not apply for the jobs. Glad to see Obama is taking that aspect into consideration.

Obama offered an amendment to the failed immigration reform bill that "would strengthen the requirement that a job be offered at a prevailing wage to American workers before it is offered to a guestworker."

The other thing that I keep coming back to on this whole subject is the fact that due to the lack of adequate staffing in many departments, we can not expedite people wishing to immigrate now or enforce existing laws. I'm a process wonk. So where are we going to get the personnel to process 12+ million people through the system, monitor employers and enforce new laws? I approve of reform in theory, but not sure how it going to be accomplished.

# "What Gov. Spitzer is trying to do [with immigrant licenses] is fill the vacuum left by the failure to bring about comprehensive immigration reform. We have several million at any one time who are in New York illegally. They are undocumented workers. They are driving on our roads. The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others is just a matter of probability. No state, no matter how well intentioned, can fill this gap. There needs to be federal action on immigration reform .... We want people to come out of the shadows. He's making an honest effort to do it. We should have passed immigration reform."

Obama and Edwards agree the drivers license issue is a red herring in absence of immigraion reform. Obama:

"When I was a state senator in Illinois, I voted to require that illegal aliens get trained, get a license, get insurance to protect public safety. That was my intention. The problem we have here is not driver's licenses. Undocumented workers do not come here to drive. They're here to work. Instead of being distracted by what has now become a wedge issue, let's focus on actually solving the problem that this administration, the Bush administration, had done nothing about it."

was because Immigrant communities both documented and undocumented tend to have networks to help the new comers and the needy with those basic necessities, with or with out charitable organizational help. But health care is a matter of Public Health specially when you consider the risk of epidemic if a large portion of your population is not screened vaccinated or treated.

besides glasses, orthodenture are not something anyone gets in most Public health scenarios even Citizens. Maybe were you live Public Health clinics have that kind of money most places you barely have enough to provide vaccines for everyone.

however to be fair, if granting driver license to undocumented immigrants as shown in the CA debate gave Obama a slight momentum on taking some of the Latino votes from Hilary and you then at the same time on on record that you voted to build the wall to keep undocumented from coming in then that is IMO a wash for support. Also note that Hilary voted for the wall to be built too. This is a good time for both candidates to express their regret on the vote to build the wall however you will then loose those voters that are supporting you because you voted to build the wall. Catch 22.

As you can see in the '08 Dem debate at Drexel, at about 1:56 she calls them "illegal immigrants," and at 2:05 she juuust baaaarely catches herself and says "undocumented worker" instead of what she wanted to say which clearly started with "illegal."